Down on the Farm (part 1)

Too much time on my hands!

i have to say I think my neighbour's insane... He's one of them guys who's jst down right odd...Should you ever meet 'David' following my advice he is best treated with those nifty white jackets with arm straps:- i mean his name is 'David' and he married a 'Dorothy'.... not odd I hear you say? Well no... but then they had three kids and named then all starting with 'd's' too!..... I can jst imagine them now, thinking it was a damn clever and witty idea to name all their kids so that the whole family started with the letter 'D'.... now THAT'S odd....

Not convinced? Need more proof?? hmmm.......

Here’s one of his nuggets of wisdom - two summers ago when I asked my other neighbour to water my plants whilst I was on holiday

Need to water your plants? - attach 8 programmable timers to one tap and your PCs parallel port and write a C++ widget.  What? He's mad I tell you Mad!!!

And as if you need any more convincing....

• Can't completely own a dog? - buy shares in one with the in-laws.
• Can't decide about moving house? - send round the father-in-law with his doglike (in fact is it a dog/ part owned by me) barometer.

ok ok.... I might have exaggerated those..... but the first is straight up!

Dotty David's Garden Improvements

Mad David has a life scheme where the outcome of his current plan dictates what happens next.(I think he went on a LEAP training session once and took it literally).  First he boarded up part of his loft - not in the humble way that you and I would do it. No No.. he moved the water tank, the access hole/ladder and incorporated a hatch for dropping/raising stuff directly from roof to the garage. (Which is handy for squatter's access should they every need or find it) He reinforced everything then moved a gym and a pinball machine up there for all the 'd' children who now no longer live at home!!

Next he built himself a dumper truck/van thing, unfortunately I have no photographic proof, jst his assurances that he needed one. Unfortunately he did this whilst doing an extension/conservatory/open barn attached to his house so there was no room to complete it....... except ...

YES....  that's right he built it in his newly converted and reinforced loft!!. When asked how he said - "it comes to bits". I'm not sure if he meant the vehicle or the loft! but i did the neighbourly thing and smiled encouragingly, mostly in an attempt to try to avoid the look of utter horror that i felt.

One of his passions is high voltages. He has a shed one particular shed that has 7 Oscillators in it and enough equipment for Dr Frankenstein to make the complete cast of friends.

After much probing i discovered the plan is to use the dumper truck/ vehicle to dig a hole for an ornamental pond - maybe you should read lake. Now as he does this, he is levelling out another area of his garden with the excavated soil. Which area? The area under his shed (no...  not the one that glows with so many volts). He jacks up this shed and stores the earth underneath it!! (Still with me??)

Unfortunately there's a fly in the ointment. (not to mention the rhino sized defect of the whole bloody scheme!)... Its the runway that masquerades as their patio (see next blog entry) has reduced his garden size a bit, in fact, so much so that he needs a new shed and the only way to fit it in with the scheme of things and without using one of the farm fields.......  is to build it over the pond on stilts!!! I kid you not!!!!

Now there's some pictures I am looking forward to.........

The Power of Attraction

Attraction's a funny old game innit.....

have you ever wondered why you seem to loose you're mind when you become attracted to someone and eventually find out that they aren't the kind of person you want to be around after all?

Don't be too hard on yourself..... It’s all down to an unspoken fantasy world that no one admits nor talks about.... it’s a universally denied fact of human thinking....

well, when I say unspoken - till now!!!

Imagine with me this.....

Papers, reports and a diary are strewn on the table before him; a couple of books are marked and open face down. This highly intelligent and usually very diligent man is unable of holding a coherent thought.... a woman is seated in the same railway carriage, jst across the aisle. After looking impassively out of the window for a while, she turned her attention to a pile of magazines and begins to flick thro' them..... She reminds the man of a portrait he saw once, which made him feel strangely moved and saddened, in a museum a few years ago.

He scrutinises her with the same interest, noticing her short brown hair, she's wearing jeans, a pair of trainers and a canary yellow V neck sweater over a white T-shirt. He also notices an incongruously large watch on her pale freckled wrist. He imagines running his hand thro' her chestnut hair, caressing the back of her neck, sliding his hand inside the sleeve of her jumper, watching her fall asleep beside him, her lips slightly agape. His mind wanders more, to imagine living with her in a house in south London, in a cherry-tree lined street he speculates that she maybe a cellist or a graphic designer or a doctor specialising in genetic research.

His mind turns over strategies for conversation. He considers asking her for the time, for a pencil, for directions to the loo's, for reflections on the weather, for a look at one of her magazines. He longs for a train crash, in which their carriage would be thrown into one of the vast barley fields thro' which they are passing. In the chaos, he would guide her safely outside, and repair with her to a nearby tent set up by the ambulance service, where they would be offered lukewarm tea and stare into each other's eyes. Years later, they would attract interest by revealing that they had met in the tragic Edinburgh to London express collision.

But because the train seems disinclined to derail, and the man knew that possibility was a touch absurd, he cleared his throat, leant over to ask the angel if she might have a spare ball-point pen. Its a simple act but to him it feels like he's jumping off the side of a very high bridge and what lies below is unknown....

The power of attraction can interrupt anyone, at any hour, even great minds and powerful people fall victim to its charms. So powerful is its command that it can demand the sacrifice of... health, wealth, status and even happiness...... now that's what i call FAITH and HOPE!!